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I had never tasted curry ketchup until I spent a school year in Germany … they use it constantly there. Every dish of french fries comes with a puddle of it, and many German restaurants also have a killer curry-wurst sausage. I haven’t been able to find it in the states other than at the occasional German restaurant, so I decided to make some.

Later, I amended this project to be a trio of condiments together for the San Diego Food Swap this month. I made spicy mustard (which I have made a few times, see here), as well as curry ketchup, and to change it up a little, instead of a cucumber pickle relish (booooor-iiiing, plus I prefer my pickles on the fried side), I decided to make a thick roasted corn and pepper relish.

All three condiments were a huge hit! Plus, they were all super-easy to make.

For the curry ketchup, I followed this recipe from Coco Cooks, except I quadrupled the recipe to make multiple jars (and I swapped every single one, so it was worth it), and instead of running it through a food mill at the end, I used my immersion hand blender to puree it, and then I used a slotted spoon to scoop out the seeds, spices and stubborn tomato chunks left inside. I also simmered mine a little longer — I figured more time letting all of the flavors get happy together couldn’t hurt. It didn’t.

I halved and quartered about 8 lbs of various ripe tomatoes, and then added all of the sugar, spices and vinegar, and set it to simmer on the stove. As it was cooking for several hours in a huge pot on the stove, I placed a few cups of mustard seeds into a bowl of beer to let them soak …

… and started a fire in my grill outside so I could char some peppers and whole ears of corn for the relish. As always, with grilling whole corn, you pull back the outer husk, then pull out the soft hair inside. Then if you are going to season it, do it now, and pull the husks back over the corn. Then place it on the hot grill with a few bell peppers.

Once the corn is cooked, simply strip the corn by removing the husk entirely, and remove the corn by standing the ear on one end and running a sharp knife down each side. Since we are making a relish, don’t worry if the kernels don’t look pretty and perfect.

Don’t forget to chop those roasted peppers, as well as a whole onion (and additional jalapeno or other peppers, if you want an extra kick:

Then, once all of the corn, peppers, and onion are diced, add 2 cups of vinegar and 1 cup of sugar, as well as 2 tablespoons each of kosher salt, garlic powder and cracked black pepper.

Let it simmer for about an hour, until the corn and onion are a little tender but still crunchy. This is an excellent topping for grilled fish and baked salmon, as well as just for a simple and tasty dip for tortilla or pita chips.

Now that the relish is finished (and getting ready for its 20-minute hot water bath), I blend the now-soft mustard seeds with fresh and smoked jalapeno pepper and smoked garlic, and puree them all a little in the food processor. Then it goes on the stove with the remaining ingredients while I puree and skim the curry ketchup.

The ketchup is refrigerator-only, but the corn relish and mustard can both be sealed in sterilized mason jars in a 20-minute hot water bath.

Mustard is one of those amazing condiments that can be switched up and adapted to your personal tastes and favorite flavors. Maybe you like a sweet honey mustard. Maybe you prefer a spicy pepper or horseradish. Maybe you’d rather have a milder, herby mustard. Well, all of them are super easy to make — and these are all delicious variations of a similar recipe.

I adapted Local Kitchen’s recipe for Roasted Garlic and Lemon Mustard, only I substituted garlic smoked over pecan wood chips instead of roasted garlic. Then I realized that the recipe could also be adapted to be spicier — with smoked jalapenos — and milder — with dill and extra lemon. All three versions were amazing!

First, either the night before or a few hours before, place 1 cup of mustard seeds in a jar or glass and cover with white wine — at least a cup. After just a couple of hours (it’s actually surprisingly fast), the mustard seeds will absorb the wine, soften, and puff up a little. The longer you let the seeds marinate, the more flavor you will infuse, but honestly a couple of hours does the trick just fine.

I set the seeds to marinate, waited about an hour, then smoked the garlic and jalapenos. I clean the garlic heads and peel off the outermost papery layer, then sprinkle salt and pepper and drizzle a little olive oil on each head. Then wrap loosely in foil (you do want the smoke to get in there) and smoke over soaked wood chips at 150-200 degrees for about 2 hours, give or take 20 minutes. I smoked my garlic heads at the same time as a boneless turkey breast, and they were ready at almost exactly the same time.

Once the garlic is cool enough to handle with your clean, bare hands, the cloves will pop out very easily and will be deliciously fragrant and a little soft and gooey.

If you think I didn’t stuff one of these into my face standing there at my kitchen counter, you are sorely mistaken.

This mustard I wanted to be fairly grainy and chunky, so instead of pureeing the marinated seeds and garlic in a food processor like the Local Kitchen guru did, I left half of the seeds whole (but softened) and the other half, I ground by hand with a mortar and pestle.

Then all of the garlic and mustard went into a pot on the stove, where I added the lemon juice and honey, and then (SLOWLY) added vinegar and wine until it was at the desired consistency. You might not need all of the vinegar and wine specified above, so pour it slowly — remember you can always add more, but once you add it, you can’t take it away. Make it a little thinner than you want the final product to be, because it will thicken upon cooling.

At this point, you want to taste the mustard, and if necessary, add more mustard powder or more garlic powder to even out the flavors and make it how you like it. Once it’s perfect, ladle it into hot, sterilized jars and seal in a water bath for 20 minutes. The total yield was two 8-oz. jars and nine 4-oz jars. Not bad!

* Smoked Jalapeno Mustard: Substitute jalapenos for garlic — smoke them in the same fashion, and chop the finished peppers very finely. Remember the heat is in the seeds and the ribs inside of the jalapeno, so if you scrape them out, you will get the smoky and peppery flavor without the heat.

I diced three jalapenos and scraped the seeds out of two of them, so mine was perhaps a 4 on a scale of 1-10. You can keep in all of the seeds and have a nice spicy mustard. Also, for this variation, I totally pureed the jalapenos and the mustard seeds instead of hand-grinding them; and I used apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar.

* Dill-Lemon Mustard: Add 1/2 cup of dried dill (or 1/4 cup of fresh, chopped dill) to the mustard seeds as they are soaking in wine, and add an extra cup of lemon juice to the total. It’s very mild (compared to the other two) and it tastes fresh and citrusy!